tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352Thu, 08 Dec 2016 12:30:51 +0000crime fictionliterary fictioncomic writinghistorical novelshistorical fictionadventure storiescrime novelssecond world warthrillersTBR Challengeeurocopsgolden age detective fictionfantasy fictionromancespy fictionAgatha Christie666 challengeclassic crimeshort storieshistorical crime fictionchildrens booksscience fictionghost storieshorrorchildrens classicsCold wartravel writingtwentieth century historyvictorian novelsnon-fictioncomfort readingeuropean historyFirst world warWorld war IIbooks that make you thinkbritish social historyart historyArtBefore I die reading challengearchaeologyreligionsocial historywomen in fictionDorothy L. 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adaptationsseasideseasonal readssebastian faulksseeingsemi-autobiographical writingseminal novelssensation fictionsense and sensibilitysequelssequencesserialsset readssex industryshakespeareshanghaishappi khorsandisicksiegfried sassoonsilk roadsingaporesingle-handedskatingslaverysnobssomerset maughamsouth east asiaspam emailsspanish civil warspicesspiritualitystalingradstalinismstalkersstately home mysterystation seriessteven saylorsurreal fictionsuspicionsutton hooswashbucklerssynopsestartan noirtechnologyteenage fictiontemperance brennanterrorthe '60sthe artsthe biblethe class systemthe heistthe rajtheatrestheatrical murder mysteriesthomas cromwellthousand splendid sunsthree musketeerstiktaaliktime of gifts trilogytintintolkientraditional storiestraditionstrain journeystreacherytrespasstv crossoversunusual novelsupper crust lifevargas llosavelasquezvera brittainvietnam warvillainsviragoviralsvoodoowalkingwallanderwalter m. miller jr.war in britainwarsaw ghettoweimar republicwhalingwildernesswill adamswilliam brownwitchcraftwoman's hourwriting about booksyoung writersyoutubeyukon questzamoniaThe BookhoundFor those who love reading (with the occasional digression)http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/noreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)Blogger744125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-7659032825908503348Thu, 08 Dec 2016 10:20:00 +00002016-12-08T10:20:13.502+00:00alexandre dumasfrench historyhistorical novelsmurderersswashbucklersvictorian novelswicked womenHistory...but not quite as we know it<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KjRt8CtOcEY/WEkzk0PdD0I/AAAAAAAAD7E/WoL9NWzkmzQsdemCvuxZtJsT6xk44LvZQCLcB/s1600/200px-Henry%2526Margot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-KjRt8CtOcEY/WEkzk0PdD0I/AAAAAAAAD7E/WoL9NWzkmzQsdemCvuxZtJsT6xk44LvZQCLcB/s1600/200px-Henry%2526Margot.jpg" /></a></div>When you're feeling down, I find that sinking yourself into a lengthy Victorian novel can be the way to go. At their best they can be totally immersive (witness my Waterloo experience when reading <i><a href="https://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/vanities.html" target="_blank">Vanity Fair</a></i> towards the end of last year). Dumas' <i>La Reine Margot </i>is not of the quality of <i>Vanity Fair, </i>but if you want a completely engrossing read, this is the sort of book that drags the reader into the novel screaming and kicking and firmly refuses to let them go.<br /><br />Set around the time of the <a href="http://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-71/saint-bartholomews-day-massacre.html" target="_blank">St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre</a>, the novel traces the early marriage of the eponymous, Queen Margot, younger sister of King Charles IX of France. It was Charles, who ordered the massacre at the instigation of his mother, Catherine de' Medici, one of history's great all-time wicked women (see the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_de'_Medici" target="_blank">Wikipedia account</a> for a rather more measured approach). Determined to maintain the Valois line Catherine would do anything to keep the French throne including murder by a variety of methods, but chiefly poison, her personal speciality. From gloves to (quite literally) poisonous books, Catherine is your go-to expert (even if it does sometimes go rather wrong).<br /><br />Margot is fated for a loveless marriage with Henry of Navarre, and the occasion of their marriage also enables the massacre to take place. Margot though is at least as adroit as her mother when involved in politics, and although there may be little love lost between her and Henry, their unlikely alliance makes them stronger together. There's plenty of swashbuckling and (discreet) bodice ripping in the novel, along with a good dash of murder, superstition and some very dark practices. All of which makes for a thrilling, if sometimes unintentionally comic, read.<br /><br />The characters are all larger than life, and most are fairly unbelievable, though I loved Henry of Navarre who was one of the few characters who emerged fully formed.<br /><br />As far as the history side was concerned I was enthralled by that too. Not least because I have Huguenot ancestry, so I'm sure the events of the period would have been of enormous importance to them. One warning here though, Dumas does play fast and loose both with some of the timing of events, and (for romantic effect) with some of the characters involved. You wouldn't want to read <i>La Reine Margot </i>thinking that you're going to get an historically accurate novel; but for a real sensation for what it must have been like to live through these times, it takes a bit of beating.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L2W7Efb62ac/WEkzRJVYibI/AAAAAAAAD7A/xZF-AQG_pYwFWKkdls31YU1VMBxmMay1wCLcB/s1600/La%2BReine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-L2W7Efb62ac/WEkzRJVYibI/AAAAAAAAD7A/xZF-AQG_pYwFWKkdls31YU1VMBxmMay1wCLcB/s200/La%2BReine.jpg" width="131" /></a></div>It's an exciting, engrossing read, and, for Dumas, surprisingly compact. I read it in the Oxford World's Classics edition, edited by David Coward, using a Victorian translation. The notes and introduction are extremely helpful and give a rather better rounded description of the period. Also worth seeing (if you haven't already done so) is Patrice Chereau's 1994 film, which managed to be both beautiful and bloody; with stand-out performances from Isabelle Adjani and Daniel Auteuil.<br /><br /><br />http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/12/historybut-not-quite-as-we-know-it.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-1316482695327710147Mon, 05 Dec 2016 14:48:00 +00002016-12-05T14:48:08.910+00:00comic writingcrime writingheroinesCracking<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NAq5mb2Zvzs/WEV9FNJorII/AAAAAAAAD6s/N3JrnRs3nmkg2PkSQImv8l8uo1ErvJ2OgCLcB/s1600/Katherine-Heigl-Cast-Stephanie-Plum-in-One-for-the-Money-2012.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NAq5mb2Zvzs/WEV9FNJorII/AAAAAAAAD6s/N3JrnRs3nmkg2PkSQImv8l8uo1ErvJ2OgCLcB/s320/Katherine-Heigl-Cast-Stephanie-Plum-in-One-for-the-Money-2012.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>A friend presented me with Janet Evanovich's <i>One for the money </i>as a birthday present, telling me that it was laugh out loud funny. She was right, it was, even for someone who isn't finding it particularly easy to laugh out loud about anything much at the moment.<br /><br /><i>One for the money </i>is the first in a series of Stephanie Plum adventures. When Stephanie, descendant of a long-line of Italian-Hungarians living in Trenton, New Jersey, loses her job, she's desperate to earn money any way she can. A receptionist's job with cousin Vinnie, who's a bail-bondsman sounds ideal. Unfortunately the position is already filled, and so Stephanie becomes Trenton's most unlikely bounty hunter. The job soon gets an added relish when her first mark turns out to be her first beau; but a tangle with a psychotic boxer, who likes nothing better than to beat up women, soon makes the job a whole lot nastier.<br /><br />I loved Stephanie, and her eccentric family. This was often gloriously funny, but as a crime story / thriller it was also well constructed and a great read. It reminded me in many ways of the previously well reviewed (and also very much liked) <a href="https://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/one-pi-and-his-dog.html" target="_blank">Chet and Bernie mysteries</a> by Spencer Quinn. Light enough to be an easy enjoyable read, but with a hard centre too guaranteed to draw in any crime fan. Roll on more Stephanie Plum.http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/12/cracking.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-1965872675531991179Thu, 01 Dec 2016 11:05:00 +00002016-12-01T11:05:44.086+00:00Cold warcoming of ageenvironmental disastersKazakhstanliterary fictionnovellasUzbek fictionInto The Zone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6fmcRaIzsBc/WEAD97aFxVI/AAAAAAAAD6Y/4M72fNEVyygMDLKiQQend4c-XJnm_ERsQCLcB/s1600/steppe_wetland_kazakhstan_360529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="170" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6fmcRaIzsBc/WEAD97aFxVI/AAAAAAAAD6Y/4M72fNEVyygMDLKiQQend4c-XJnm_ERsQCLcB/s400/steppe_wetland_kazakhstan_360529.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Early last year I read Hamid Ismailov's <i><a href="https://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/tbr.html" target="_blank">The railway</a>, </i>a sometimes brutal, sometimes beautiful read, that failed however to grasp me. My feelings for his later novella, <i>The Dead Lake, </i>though are very different. It's a haunting, beautiful and upsetting tale set in a time and place in Soviet history that was initially repressed, and has now been largely, and wrongly, forgotten.<br /><br />The novella begins on a train crossing the Kazakh steppe, when the narrator meets Yerzhan, who appears to be a young boy but is actually a young man. Yerzhan is a child prodigy, equally adept at playing the violin (his teacher who has been exiled to the Steppe is a former pupil of <a href="http://www.thestrad.com/remembering-the-great-violinist-david-oistrakh/" target="_blank">David Oistrakh</a>) and the traditional dombra, one of the most popular of Kazakh instruments.<br /><br />Yerzhan tells the story of his life growing up in a close family in remote Kazakhstan at the height of the Cold War; in love with his beautiful cousin, Aisulu, and torn between modern life and the traditional life of the Steppe. This curiously idyllic life however is not without a dark side. Yerzhan's Uncle Shaken is part of a nuclear testing programme, which he assures Yerzhan is to keep the Soviet Union a step in front of the Americans. At the heart of the testing programme is "The Zone", an area of Kazakhstan where nuclear missiles are tested. Yerzhan's life will change forever when he visits "The Zone" one day and dives into the Dead Lake to impress Aisulu. From that moment, he will fail to grow, while Aisulu grows tall and willowy and ultimately sick, just like the nuclear blasted grasslands.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-daJZc1ror3o/WEADvb0q13I/AAAAAAAAD6U/POOuho8i-JQ5vnUFmjOU9ve32bonCBh-wCLcB/s1600/201207120006HQ_-_Soyuz_TMA-05M_spacecraft_on_the_Kazakh_steppe.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-daJZc1ror3o/WEADvb0q13I/AAAAAAAAD6U/POOuho8i-JQ5vnUFmjOU9ve32bonCBh-wCLcB/s320/201207120006HQ_-_Soyuz_TMA-05M_spacecraft_on_the_Kazakh_steppe.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>At the heart of the tale is an environmental catastrophe. Between 1945 and 1989, over 200,000 inhabitants of the area around <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semey" target="_blank">Semipalatinsk</a> were routinely exposed to lethal levels of radiation. It is believed that the <a href="http://thebulletin.org/lasting-toll-semipalatinsks-nuclear-testing" target="_blank">testing in that area</a> was akin to 2,500 nuclear explosions of the level that wiped out Hiroshima. The effects on the population have been long lasting and continue into the present time.<br /><br />Yerzhan's tale is heartbreakingly sad, but there are also moments of great beauty. Ismailov's writing is wonderful turning from darkness to light, with moments of humour and love. The translator, Andrew Bromfield, does a great job here capturing the rhythms of the original language so that the pulse of horses' hooves and the train rumbling across the Steppe breathe through the narrative.<br /><br />For a novel that is ultimately very sad, there is also something wonderfully life affirming and loving about it. A must-read.<br /><br /><i>The dead lake </i>is one of a series of short "2-hour" novellas published by <a href="http://www.peirenepress.com/about_us/about_us" target="_blank">Peirene Press</a>. They're all translations, and judging by <i>The dead lake,&nbsp;</i>they're well worth investigating further.<br /><br /><br />http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/12/into-zone.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-8532429957695771655Thu, 01 Dec 2016 09:42:00 +00002016-12-01T09:42:33.006+00:00crime writingeurocopsmaigretBusman's holiday<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A7fiv5TsHJ4/WD_wLaVDwsI/AAAAAAAAD6E/4CH2JpQdQ3wXap6uaAioH31yLRcWxJyQACLcB/s1600/les-sables-d-olonne-les.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-A7fiv5TsHJ4/WD_wLaVDwsI/AAAAAAAAD6E/4CH2JpQdQ3wXap6uaAioH31yLRcWxJyQACLcB/s320/les-sables-d-olonne-les.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Inspector Maigret is enjoying his annual holiday on the Atlantic coast. Everything should be peaceful, with long lazy afternoons on the beaches of Les Sables d'Olonne. But Maigret and his wife's plans for his well deserved annual break are thrown into chaos when a nasty case of food poisoning leads to Madame Maigret spending some time in hospital with acute appendicitis.<br /><br />While Maigret struggles to deal with time spent without the calming presence of his wife, there is a further complication when he becomes aware that there is a patient at the hospital who needs his help; but can Maigret get to the bottom of the case before another death happens?<br /><br />I've always loved Maigret, and <i>Maigret's holiday </i>proved to be an unexpected delight. Not least because many of the places mentioned in the novel were towns that I knew from a long ago French vacation. As always with Maigret, the novel is beautifully plotted, and the way Maigret joins the threads of the investigation together is a delight.<br /><br />Most of all though, I love the humanity of Maigret. From his love for his wife even to his concern, mingled with disgust, for the murderer. Georges Simenon was not just a great crime writer, he was a great writer. <i>Maigret's holiday </i>is short but beautifully constructed. A joy to read.http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/12/busmans-holiday.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-8215065466282600373Wed, 30 Nov 2016 13:42:00 +00002016-11-30T13:42:33.422+00:00crime writingInspector GalileoJapanese noirjapanese writingKeigo HigashinoNot so saintly<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hT4ZMuuCrSc/WD7XFLen3sI/AAAAAAAAD5w/kogLpMi3vBIDyAfkpfz-sFnYIdDxDOTCACLcB/s1600/4511108-coffee-cup-wallpapers.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hT4ZMuuCrSc/WD7XFLen3sI/AAAAAAAAD5w/kogLpMi3vBIDyAfkpfz-sFnYIdDxDOTCACLcB/s320/4511108-coffee-cup-wallpapers.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><i>Salvation of a saint </i>is another in Keigo Higashino's stylish Japanese-noir series "Inspector Galileo" following on from the earlier reviewed&nbsp;<i><a href="https://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2014/09/devotion.html" target="_blank">The devotion of Suspect X</a>. </i>I loved <i>Suspect X, </i>but feel rather ambivalent about <i>Salvation of a saint. </i>The more recent novel brings together favourite characters from the earlier book including Detective Kusanagi, and his former university friend, and all round genius, physics professor Yukawa.<br /><br />There are quite a few similarities between the two novels. In both cases there's a prime female suspect, who appears to have an unbreakable alibi, and a seemingly impossible murder. In this case there's the added complication that Kusanagi appears to have become romantically attached to the chief suspect. There's a likeable female detective, Utsumi; and a nice vein of black humour. <i>Saint </i>however failed to move me in quite the same way.<br /><br />For a start there's the murder itself - very clever. In fact too clever, I just found myself completely unable to believe in it; and once my belief in the likelihood of the murder broke down, I found myself unable to believe in or to empathise with, any of the characters. It's a nice idea, and cleverly written, but I think Higashino asks his audience to suspend their disbelief a step too far.<br /><br />Interesting, good to read, but ultimately unconvincing.http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/11/not-so-saintly.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-8577876461446662322Mon, 21 Nov 2016 13:57:00 +00002016-11-21T13:57:01.546+00:00Artcartoonsdepressionmental healthIt's all absolutely fine<a href="http://rubyetc.tumblr.com/archive#_=_" target="_blank">Rubyetc</a>&nbsp;(Ruby Elliot) is an artist in her 20's, who also happens to have been struggling with various forms of mental illness for much of her life. Her way to express herself and to keep on living is to draw. She's had a presence on the net for some years - Tumblr, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/rubyetcdrawing/" target="_blank">Facebook</a>,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/rubyetc" target="_blank">Twitter</a>&nbsp;and <a href="https://www.instagram.com/rubyetc_/?hl=en" target="_blank">Instagram</a>, and has now launched a book <i>It's all absolutely fine, </i>which continues the blend of thoughts and drawings that have already made her so popular and relateable online.<br /><br />I came across the book by accident, when a friend on Facebook flagged it up, and was so impressed by a quick glance that I ordered it immediately from Amazon. Here's the thing - I suffer from depression. Most of the time I am "absolutely fine", but sometimes I'm really not, I am the "all absolutely fine" of the title; and that's where I'm at now.<br /><br />Sometimes it just hits out of nowhere. For me, there are usually stress triggers. Life this year has been more than usually pants; I can deal with it for so long and then it just becomes too much, and that's sort of where it is for me at the moment.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-35TYH6LBWEg/WDL8Tg7n0AI/AAAAAAAAD5g/kaCUQBKnJRcA0Lckxd396IkUyNa6JOrYwCLcB/s1600/Managed.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-35TYH6LBWEg/WDL8Tg7n0AI/AAAAAAAAD5g/kaCUQBKnJRcA0Lckxd396IkUyNa6JOrYwCLcB/s320/Managed.png" width="213" /></a></div>I stress about stress. Everything feels too much, so just dealing with the everyday becomes difficult, having to deal with extras on top feels impossible. I worry. I worry all the time. And I can't turn the worry switch off. I apologise for everything, even when I know it's not my fault (it has to be my fault surely, everything else is?).<br /><br />I worry about my partner, I know he's finding it difficult dealing with my depression, and I try not to do the mad depressive in front of him because I don't want to lose him, but at the same time it's bursting out of me. It's hard enough to keep it together in work, so keeping it together at home too is well-nigh impossible. I stop being the confident person that I am normally, and become insecure (not just about him, about life in general), and most of the time I feel so alone. My brain is racing like a hamster on a wheel, and I feel trapped inside my own depression.<br /><br />Perhaps this is why Ruby's book is so brilliant. She's speaking solely from her own experience, and everyone's experience of mental illness will be different - from the illness itself to the way the individual deals with it, but there are some things that will be shared in common. It's a way out of the aloneness when you're feeling at your most alone, and for that I've got to say thank you.http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/11/its-all-absolutely-fine.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-3449833996041764197Thu, 17 Nov 2016 16:33:00 +00002016-11-17T16:33:19.518+00:00africabooks that make you thinkconservationelephantsLawrence AnthonynaturewildlifeSaving Africa<i>The elephant whisperer </i>is Lawrence Anthony's very readable account (thanks to writer, Graham Spence) of his work with African wildlife, notably elephants, in the former private game reserve Thula Thula, now part of the <a href="https://www.virgin.com/virgin-unite/leadership-and-advocacy/thula-thulas-royal-zulu-dream-comes-alive" target="_blank">Royal Zulu biosphere</a> in South Africa.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ECbmTec5E3o/WC3bcEKMlaI/AAAAAAAAD5Q/L-UyFOMtnH8rc6y9bWTFUztqsRHDa9nJACLcB/s1600/Lawrence%2BAnthony%2B-%2BElephant%2BWhisperer12lr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ECbmTec5E3o/WC3bcEKMlaI/AAAAAAAAD5Q/L-UyFOMtnH8rc6y9bWTFUztqsRHDa9nJACLcB/s320/Lawrence%2BAnthony%2B-%2BElephant%2BWhisperer12lr.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Anthony was already well known for his conservation work in Africa, when he was asked to accept a herd of elephants that had been causing havoc in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mpumalanga" target="_blank">Mpumalanga</a>, where they were constantly breaking through fences and terrifying the local population. Thula Thula was these rogue elephants last chance. They had good reason for not trusting man, but would have to learn to live with at least moderate interaction with humans if they were going to survive. Anthony soon learned that he had a truly jumbo problem as the elephants proved to be much more difficult than even he had anticipated.<br /><br />By endless patience, some wonderful counter intuitive thinking, and a novel approach to working with the animals, Anthony rehabilitated these animals, and brought elephants back to an area of Africa that, thanks to the depredations of poachers, had been elephant free for many years.<br /><br />Alongside the central story of the relationship between Anthony and the elephants, there's also the wider story of Lawrence's fight to turn Thula Thula into part of a much bigger whole. A reservation that would spread over 500,000 acres, and open up some of the old migration routes to the wildlife of the region. Anthony's approach to the native fauna of Africa is truly humbling. His belief that everything has a place, and an importance in nature, be they cute baby elephant or giant crocodile, was constantly tested; but he was determined to make the wider reservation a place where every part of nature was valued.<br /><br />I wasn't altogether in tune with him spiritually, and there are odd infelicities, but overall this is a wonderful book. Lawrence Anthony sounds like a great man, whose love for Africa and its animals shines through, his commitment to conservation is awe-inspiring, and his respect for the people, animals and land of the African continent salutary. I was very sorry to learn that he had died shortly before his last book, <i>The last rhinos, </i>which told of Anthony's dangerous journey into the Congo to rescue an endangered herd of Northern White Rhinos, was published.<br /><br /><i>The elephant whisperer </i>is a fitting tribute to the work of Lawrence Anthony, and of conservationists struggling to preserve animals who are on the verge of extinction everywhere. This wasn't the sort of book I would normally read (I think <i><a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/free.html" target="_blank">Born Free</a>, I dreamed of Africa</i>, and, to a lesser extent <i>The flame trees of Thika</i> and <i><a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/out-of-africa.html" target="_blank">Out of Africa</a></i> are the only similar Bookhound reads ever), but thanks to a loan from a friend I was surprised to find how enchanted and moved I was by this. Inspiring.<br /><br /><br /><br />http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/11/saving-africa.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-6655604683711493549Mon, 14 Nov 2016 17:53:00 +00002016-11-14T17:53:06.223+00:00american historybiopicscontagious diseaseshistorical novelsNew YorkTyphoid MaryFever<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RMLQZ4yTq_c/WCn519Xem0I/AAAAAAAAD4w/x-xU4bLT7t4r2voNs7MM2dGiHHXcgMbFQCLcB/s1600/250px-Typhoid_carrier_polluting_food_-_a_poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-RMLQZ4yTq_c/WCn519Xem0I/AAAAAAAAD4w/x-xU4bLT7t4r2voNs7MM2dGiHHXcgMbFQCLcB/s320/250px-Typhoid_carrier_polluting_food_-_a_poster.jpg" width="241" /></a></div>Funny how you just accept certain phrases - Sweet Fanny Adams, who was <a href="https://hampshireculturaltrust.org.uk/content/true-story-sweet-fanny-adams" target="_blank">Fanny Adams</a>? (And no, it's not just a euphemism for something rather more strongly worded). How about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_J._Kilroy" target="_blank">Kilroy</a>, who is always 'ere? What about <a href="http://www.peevish.co.uk/slang/articles/gordon-bennett.htm" target="_blank">Gordon Bennett</a>? Or <a href="hhttp://www.history.com/news/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-typhoid-mary" target="_blank">Typhoid Mary</a>?<div><br /></div><div>Mary Beth Keane's novel, <i>Fever, </i>tells the story of "Typhoid Mary", actually Mary Mallon, and her partner, Albert; and follows the horrendous story of her life. Mallon was an Irish immigrant to New York in the late nineteenth century. Brought up to be a laundress, Mallon had aspirations to make a better life for herself. She was determined to be a cook, and ended up cooking for some of the top New York families. Typhoid and other diseases were endemic in the overcrowded streets of the Big Apple in the late nineteenth / early twentieth century, but after some particularly nasty bouts of typhoid, a Dr. Soper, a sanitary engineer, who was in the vanguard of new approaches to health did some investigation, and realised that the common link was Ms Mallon.</div><div><br /></div><div>Mary was unlucky in that she was an asymptomatic carrier, so she had no knowledge that she was a carrier of typhoid, but unfortunately she was able to pass the disease on through her handling of food. Apparently it is known today that asymptomatic carriers are not particularly unusual and they continue to pose a problem.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>Mary was incarcerated first in a hospital, and then on an island in the East River, near the notorious Riker's Island. During this time she was given no access to a lawyer, little care was taken of her own health (she ended up in an isolation hospital for consumptives), she wasn't even allowed to communicate with her friends and family. Later there was some degree of freedom, and she was eventually allowed back home on condition that she didn't cook.</div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HKuDCqFr2NA/WCn58a9hHNI/AAAAAAAAD40/tpU27CbTkskQ8ND-3Uw2fNb-vym6wEPxgCLcB/s1600/mary-1909.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HKuDCqFr2NA/WCn58a9hHNI/AAAAAAAAD40/tpU27CbTkskQ8ND-3Uw2fNb-vym6wEPxgCLcB/s1600/mary-1909.jpg" /></a></div><div>For a while she kept a low profile, and started to work as a laundress again; but whether it was because Mary genuinely loved cooking, the money was too good to turn down, or she believed that medical opinion was wrong (or even as some would believe with malice aforethought), she returned to cooking; and there was soon an outbreak of typhoid in a maternity hospital, where several people died. Mary was cornered and taken back to North Brother Island, where she died on November 11th (the day I finished the novel!) 1938.</div><div><br /></div><div>Keane tells the story with great humanity, she doesn't judge Mary, and she also points out the double standards of the day. Several other asymptomatic carriers were also known, but they were treated far more humanely than Mary. The men were allowed to keep their jobs, with some minor adjustments, and they were certainly not slammed into isolation, or forced to have humiliating, and sometimes pointless, medical procedures performed on them. Keane argues persuasively in her novel that much of the attitude towards Mary was because of discrimination to her sex, her class (a washerwoman who can write? How is that possible?), her nationality, and perhaps most of all her determination as a woman to stand up for herself.</div><div><br /></div><div>I thoroughly enjoyed the novel. It's a stunning evocation of a period, and a place, and for that alone it should be applauded. As far as Mallon herself was concerned, I wasn't altogether persuaded by Keane. The earlier outbreaks Mary was certainly innocent, in that she didn't know the danger that she was inadvertently putting other people into. And Dr. Soper, undoubtedly sounds a most unpleasant character, who is determined to milk the person who has made his name. However the story of Mary's return to her life as a cook, and the terrible climax at the Sloane Maternity Hospital, made for difficult reading. I'm still not sure whether Mary was rather more stupid than Keane would like to believe, or was indeed malicious. Perhaps we can't altogether blame her for any malice in view of the inhuman treatment she had received during an earlier outbreak. Ultimately, of course we will never know for sure Mallon's reasoning, but Keane portrays her central character, and her flawed drugged partner, Alfred, with great humanity, and brings these difficult characters brilliantly to life.</div><div><br /></div><div>I loved <i>Fever, </i>and it's well worth reading. Discrimination against those with an illness is still with us today. <i>Fever </i>makes salutary reading.</div>http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/11/fever.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-83964365112071765Sun, 06 Nov 2016 19:02:00 +00002016-11-06T19:02:18.841+00:00crime novelsdonna leoneurocopsmusicobsessionoperastalkersStalked<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/oQ7S0nqvc-c/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/oQ7S0nqvc-c?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style="text-align: left;">I always like it when familiar faces from novels make a reappearance. I don't mean the standard major characters that you get in any fictional series - Harry Potter, Adam Dalgleish, Hercule Poirot; but the ones like Ariadne Oliver that appear intermittently and unexpectedly and are always a delight to meet once again, and to see how their lives have progressed since you last met them. (I suspect that I'm not the only reader who believes at least a little that the characters who become part of their imagination have independent lives outside of the time when you're reading about them).&nbsp;</div><br />A case in point is Flavia Petrelli, operatic diva, who makes a reappearance in Donna Leon's <i>Falling in love </i>having previously appeared in the first Brunetti mystery <i><a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/is-there-doctor-in-house.html" target="_blank">Death at La Fenice</a>, </i>and briefly in the later <i>Acqua Alta. </i>Flavia is back in Venice after a long break to sing the leading part in <i>Tosca</i>. As beautiful and talented as ever, Flavia is more than a little freaked out after an obsessive fan breaks into her dressing room and apartment block to leave hundreds of yellow roses. But what seems to be an innocent if rather creepy obsession becomes much more serious as people close to Flavia are violently attacked. Is Flavia's stalker someone close to her, or, rather more worryingly for Commissario Brunetti, a lone mad voice?<br /><br />This is a really well-written mystery. Plenty of character, plenty of suspense, and for any opera lover plenty of music (even if Donna Leon is not a great fan of <i>Tosca, </i>unlike myself). As ever the city is glowingly alive, and is as much a part of the novel as any character. There is a return to the humour of some of the earlier novels, as the battle between Brunetti's superior, Patta, the odious Lieutenant Scarpa (surely it's no mistake that his name is so similar to the also odious police chief, Scarpia, of Puccini's opera), and the Machiavellian secretary, Signorina Elettra gathers pace. There's also a cracking twist in the tail guaranteed to make any reader think about the morality of murder.<br /><br />In the world of <i>Falling in love </i>the female of the species is definitely more deadly than the male. And, in view of Petrelli's earlier incarnations in the series, I'm not altogether sure what Leon is saying here about sexuality as well as about obsessive love. However the climax is quite extraordinary, and guaranteed to grip any crime afficionado. One of Leon's best.<br /><br /><br />http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/11/stalked.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-3032525093107765742Wed, 26 Oct 2016 11:48:00 +00002016-10-26T12:48:17.841+01:00Cold warromancesspy fictionthrillersSort of disapponting<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UyPi_M9AxDE/WBCXYzPb_zI/AAAAAAAAD4Y/FoGM7p0-FQ0W_6aZSUCNMvJOm5t3q4A3QCLcB/s1600/Washington.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="215" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UyPi_M9AxDE/WBCXYzPb_zI/AAAAAAAAD4Y/FoGM7p0-FQ0W_6aZSUCNMvJOm5t3q4A3QCLcB/s320/Washington.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>It's always a bit of a shame when you read a novel by a writer you like, and it doesn't quite come up to scratch. <i>I and my true love </i>is a decidedly odd and rather frustrating read.<br /><br />If you've never come across the author, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_MacInnes" target="_blank">Helen MacInnes</a>, before, she's worth a read. MacInnes grew up in Scotland but spent much of her life from the 1940's onwards in the United States. Some time ago I'd read <i>The Venetian Affair </i>and thoroughly enjoyed it. MacInnes' style is somewhere between Eric Ambler and Alistair Maclean; and at her best she can compete with either of them. Her earlier novels were very highly rated, perhaps not least because it is suspected that she had substantial input from her husband, who was a serving member of MI6.<br /><br />Her life in America at the height of the Cold War fed into her fiction. Although she was innately conservative, her literature remains firmly opposed to tyranny and dictatorialism, placing her in an unusual position as an anti-Communist backlash started in America following the end of the Second World War. This perhaps accounts for the odd nature of <i>I and my true love.</i><br /><i><br /></i>Payton and Sylvia Pleydell appear to be the perfect diplomatic couple, holding court at their Georgetown property. In fact Payton is manipulative and reactionary, and Sylvia is still in love with the Czech, Jan Brovic, who she met towards the end of the war. When Brovic turns up again in Washington, Sylvia makes plans to leave her husband. But is Brovic in it for love, or is he working for the new regime?<br /><br />It's a curiously unsatisfying read. The reader is unsure of Brovic's motivation, and remains unsure throughout the book. Payton Pleydell comes across as a thoroughly unpleasant character, as do many of the career civil servants that flit through the pages of the book. The female characters are strong but easily manipulated; while only two of the male characters are likeable and willing to risk their own careers to do the right thing - the career soldier, Bob Turner, who, out of all of the characters except for Brovic has real experience of the evils of the Cold War; and minor intelligence man, Martin Clark, who is more concerned with doing the right thing for his friends and country than his own personal ambition.<br /><br />The characters are generally unpleasant and paper thin; and the ending feels as though it's been tacked on hastily. As a romance it's not quite good enough, and as a spy thriller it feels patchy and ill-constructed. What is there to like about it? It's actually a pretty good read in terms of painting a picture of the "Reds under the beds" paranoia that gripped America in the 1950's. The sense of suffocation, and the uncertainty of who can be trusted are well portrayed, but as a thriller and as a romance it left this reader cold.http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/10/sort-of-disapponting.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-3908929775422954501Sat, 22 Oct 2016 14:00:00 +00002016-10-22T15:00:32.583+01:00Alfred HitchcockCentral Europefilms based on booksTBR Challengethrillerstrain journeysFast train through Europe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-meur3YW_5Ks/WAtw5RJd-JI/AAAAAAAAD4I/GBPNho7nUpwA9nZBGjjQv4XhmD4YQ2sJwCLcB/s1600/Lady%2Bvanishes.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-meur3YW_5Ks/WAtw5RJd-JI/AAAAAAAAD4I/GBPNho7nUpwA9nZBGjjQv4XhmD4YQ2sJwCLcB/s320/Lady%2Bvanishes.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">****SPOILER ALERT****</div><i>The wheel spins </i>by Ethel Lina White has been one of those books on my To Be Read list for far too long. It's also, for even longer, been one of my favourite films, as <i>The Lady Vanishes </i>is based on the book.<br /><br />Published in 1936, as a thriller it's an entertaining enough read, although pales besides other contemporary writers of the genre such as Eric Ambler or Graham Greene. But there's much to admire here, and plenty to marvel at. Not least the way in which Alfred Hitchcock kept much of the essentials of the original and by a little bit of judicious tweaking turned the film into something that worked so much better than the original.<br /><br />The novel tells the story of Iris Carr, a spoiled socialite with a broken engagement behind her, who is on holiday in a remote part of Europe. Left behind when her friends return home, Iris takes a later train to Trieste, but is taken ill on the station platform. Once on board the train she is befriended by the sole English woman in the compartment, a Miss Froy, who has been working in Central Europe, and confides in Iris that she has been in the employ of a senior member of state. Feeling unwell, Iris falls asleep and on waking discovers that Miss Froy has disappeared. All the other members of the compartment deny any knowledge of Miss Froy, as does the mysterious doctor and his nurses next door who are nursing a seriously ill, and heavily bandaged, patient.<br /><br />Iris appeals to a British professor and his friend, Max Hare, for help. They don't believe her, although Hare has swiftly fallen romantically for her. More puzzling is the reaction of other British passengers, the Misses Floode-Porter, a vicar and his wife, and the "honeymoon" couple, the Todhunters; all of whom have met Miss Froy; all, for purely selfish reasons, deny any knowledge of her. The reader is swiftly aware of the motivation behind this, and that Iris is indeed correct that something sinister has happened to Miss Froy. In an attempt to stop Iris's interference, the mysterious doctor, who is attempting to abduct Miss Froy with a view to assassination, drugs Iris, only for his plan to backfire when she reveals the real Miss Froy and saves her life.<br /><br />The story is paper thin, but there's a nice vein of humour running through it, and White is excellent at ramping up the tension. There's also a rather more serious side as she looks at the motivation of the passengers who refuse to acknowledge that Iris's companion is indeed missing.<br /><br />Hitchcock's version follows the plot fairly closely. Iris is on holiday, this time on a sort of civilized stag-do pending her marriage back in London. Miss Froy is ostensibly a governess on the way home, though she actually is a most unlikely British spy, and is slightly older than her equivalent in <i>The Wheel Spins. </i>The Misses Floode-Porter are replaced by male cricket-buff friends, Charters and Caldicott (played to brilliant humorous effect by the wonderful Basil Radford and Naunton Wayne), and the vicar and his wife disappear from the cast list. The British professor also vanishes, though his friend Max Hare continues in a changed form (he's renamed Gilbert, and is a rather potty ethnomusicologist - there can't be many of those in films! - but his character stays true to the original). The unpleasant doctor and fellow foreigners largely remain unchanged except that they now have international secrets to safeguard, and so the film becomes much more dramatic (there's even a gun battle) than the book.<br /><br />Hitchcock was brilliantly clever at maintaining the humour of the original, while sweeping away the bits of the story that don't quite work. For instance, the unveiling of Miss Froy that fails to quite deliver in the book is presented in a much simpler fashion in the film and so works better. The reason for Miss Froy's kidnap in the book is down to her accidentally being able to disprove the alibi of a murderer, in the film there are sinister European politics at the heart of her abduction. On the cusp of a second world war, this makes much more sense, and also makes the thriller more of an Everyman tale. What Miss Froy knows is something that will affect everyone, not just a single sordid crime.<br /><br />Seldom have I been so impressed by a film adaptation. Hitchcock and his screenwriters, Launder and Gilliat, who would later become top British directors and producers in their own right, make a superb job of improving on the original with a little judicious polishing and some adept changes of pace and direction. Ethel Lina White was also, I believe, involved in the screenplay, and I think this is most noticeable in the character of Iris and the vein of humour that remains largely untouched throughout.<br /><br />I don't think the book is as good as the film, though it is a fun read. Its mores are very much of the period - British are best, and foreigners are distinctly dodgy and potentially dangerous. Ironically the only person who disagrees with this is Miss Froy herself, who is sadly proved wrong in placing her trust in foreigners. White though shows that it's not just the Central European characters terrified of the sinister Baroness who are capable of lying, as the British characters consistently lie too, and usually for much weaker reasons that the scared foreigners. It's an entertaining period read, and I look forward to reading much more of Ethel Lina White.<br /><br />http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/10/fast-train-through-europe.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-7891074887380391268Fri, 21 Oct 2016 13:24:00 +00002016-10-21T14:24:29.834+01:00crime novelseurocopsgerman historyhistorical fictionserial killers in fictionthrillersRuined city, shattered lives<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sIV2njm5CZs/WAoWmw9picI/AAAAAAAAD34/7Mvfd0LLvgQhQ-BBy7ehhPjmnLwXctmUgCLcB/s1600/Hamburg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="269" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sIV2njm5CZs/WAoWmw9picI/AAAAAAAAD34/7Mvfd0LLvgQhQ-BBy7ehhPjmnLwXctmUgCLcB/s400/Hamburg.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>There may be a new contender in the European crime noir market, currently dominated by Scandinavian Noir. Back in 2014 I reviewed <i><a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/expert-witness.html" target="_blank">The Collini Case</a>&nbsp;</i>by Ferdinand von Schirach, a taut tale of modern murder and a Nazi past; I recently discovered another German writer, who this time sets his crime novels exclusively in the past - Cay Rademacher. The first in Rademacher's Hamburg trilogy (second and third are due to be published this year and next) <i>The murderer in ruins </i>is a stunningly told cold tale of post-war Germany and a serial killer on the loose.<div><i><br /></i></div><div>Based on real life events - a series of unsolved murders in Hamburg in the bitter winter of 1946, Chief Inspector Frank Stave is on the trail of a murderer, who has left two women, a child and an elderly man naked and dead in the ruins of the city of Hamburg. Stave is forced to work with the British occupation authorities and a vice-cop to try to identify the victims and capture the killer.</div><div><br /></div><div>It's a beautifully written novel with a real sense of place. The nearest to it would undoubtedly be the Vienna of Graham Greene's <i>Third Man</i>. In the Hamburg of Rademacher's <i>Murderer in ruins </i>black marketeers jostle refugees and orphans, it's an odd land where it is normal to be missing, and where people can vanish without anyone noticing. It's also a country trying to resurrect itself from its Nazi past, but where Nazis still lurk, sometimes within plain view. Stave himself is a genuinely good person, struggling to find his son, a new life, and to come to terms with the dark recent history of Germany.&nbsp;</div><div><br /></div><div>It's not a novel without faults. The riddle of the victims' identity is I think not entirely unconvincing, I personally found it difficult to believe that that particular set of people would have ended up in Hamburg, but at the same time, it ramped up the tension superbly; and it also provided an unexpected, and ironical, slice of history. I loved the unusual insight too into post-war Germany seen from a German perspective, pre-economic miracle.</div><div><br /></div><div>If you enjoyed David Downing's <a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/the-train-now-arriving.html" target="_blank"><i>Station</i> series</a> of novels, I'm sure you would enjoy these. Although I think that Rademacher's realisation of post-war Hamburg is much more highly realised than Downing's post-war Berlin. The translation by Peter Millar is superb, and it's a gripping start to what promises to be a fascinating series. Perhaps the next wave of European Noir is going to come from Germany?</div><div><i><br /></i></div><div><i>&nbsp;</i></div>http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/10/ruined-city-shattered-lives.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-4597755663166522975Mon, 17 Oct 2016 18:06:00 +00002016-10-17T19:06:44.091+01:00cold casescrime novelssuspicionVal McDermidGuilty?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H5cuwPcqwH8/WAUTJNkLtwI/AAAAAAAAD3o/SUCAiYHdlWsVRmAshiGLo5i_Aodu73GBgCLcB/s1600/Hallow%2BHill.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H5cuwPcqwH8/WAUTJNkLtwI/AAAAAAAAD3o/SUCAiYHdlWsVRmAshiGLo5i_Aodu73GBgCLcB/s1600/Hallow%2BHill.jpg" /></a></div>Crime-fiction loving friends, of which I have a large number, have been urging me to read one author for quite a while - Val McDermid. Last week I had a nasty accident and ended up spending a couple of days at Other Half's home while I was recuperating. With no books on me (a most unusual occurence), I was quickly becoming booksick. Thankfully OH's Mum had a variety of books at hand, one of which was <i>The&nbsp;distant echo, </i>my chance to finally read a Val McDermid.<br /><br />I'm not sure how typical of her style is <i>The&nbsp;distant echo. </i>It's a sort of police procedural, but with very little of the police in it. In fact the police are not reflected particularly well in this. What it is though, is a very good crime novel, told from a rather unusual perspective.<br /><br />A group of friends attending St. Andrews' university are on their way home from a drunken night out - an early Christmas celebration, when they stumble across a girl's body. The dead barmaid, Rosie Duff, is known to all of them; and at least one of the group has a massive crush on her. The case proves very difficult to crack though, and the seemingly innocent students find themselves at the centre of suspicion. Rosie Duff's death will lead to another death, and will split the group of friends up. Many years later a cold case review is opened into Duff's death, but as death visits the friends who found the body, it would appear that someone is anxious to get justice for Rosie before the cold case is resolved. But is this really what is happening, or is the murderer just trying to cover his tracks?<br /><br />I thought this was a brilliant thriller, even if I did guess very early on (first page he was mentioned!) who was the murderer. Having said which though, this is a clever thriller. Very well constructed, great characterisation, and a haunting memorable plot. It's unusual in a thriller to concentrate on the fall-out from a murder. McDermid deals sensitively here with those who are left behind trying to come to terms with their loss; and with those on whom suspicion falls wrongly. A great introduction to the work of Val McDermid, I'm looking forward to reading more.http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/10/guilty.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-6759951267849655891Mon, 17 Oct 2016 17:41:00 +00002016-10-17T18:41:03.200+01:00Agatha ChristieBritish societycrime novelsthrillersCat among the pigeons<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o1aL0ucl47o/WAUMsS-pZyI/AAAAAAAAD3Y/MBjsDwMbAusj3WBTUBakd-6EMmUsIKacwCLcB/s1600/Diamonds.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-o1aL0ucl47o/WAUMsS-pZyI/AAAAAAAAD3Y/MBjsDwMbAusj3WBTUBakd-6EMmUsIKacwCLcB/s1600/Diamonds.jpg" /></a></div>As Bookhounders will have guessed by now, I'm a bit of a fan of Agatha Christie. I enjoy reading her whatever the book, but I do find her output quite variable. The straightforward detective stories, especially those from her earlier years, are virtually always excellent, even if occasionally you can spot the format peeking through the plot. The adventure / spy stories are nearly always not so good, though there are some exceptions such as <i>They came to Baghdad, </i>which has remained a firm favourite.<br /><br /><i>Cat among the pigeons </i>is a rather strange read. Part mystery (Poirot makes an appearance), and part thriller, it's an odd book with a pretty ridiculous plot. Following a coup in an obscure Arab country, a series of murders takes place in an elite girls' school in rural England. As worried parents hastily remove their daughters, one of the brighter girls pays a visit to Hercule Poirot...<br /><br />It's an odd tale of spies, wicked women, diamonds and ambition. There are twists and turns aplenty, and it's a fun enough read for a wet autumn day; but as a serious thriller it's pretty limp. With the exception of one or two characters, the characterisation is weak, the plot is unbelievable - no, let's be honest, daft, and the writing is fairly clumsy.<br /><br />One thing though does make this novel interesting. It's a decent snapshot of society in the early '50s from changing attitudes to women, love and sex, and the end of the British Empire. And that alone does make for a fascinating read. For Christie at her best though, this isn't your book. Enjoyable, but with holes aplenty, not her greatest work.http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/10/cat-among-pigeons.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-2137086595948341939Tue, 04 Oct 2016 15:37:00 +00002016-10-04T16:37:49.197+01:00Anthony Horowitzcrime novelshistorical crime fictionre-tellingssherlock holmesthrillersvictorian londonClever<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-daqbkj6cisg/V_PMdTBZPTI/AAAAAAAAD3I/BDsHlm3ozrgTY3FIOfCDRGYZXtOkHl04gCLcB/s1600/Sherlock_Holmes_an_2760152a-large.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="248" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-daqbkj6cisg/V_PMdTBZPTI/AAAAAAAAD3I/BDsHlm3ozrgTY3FIOfCDRGYZXtOkHl04gCLcB/s400/Sherlock_Holmes_an_2760152a-large.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>Bookhounders may remember that I lavished praise on Anthony Horowitz's addition to the Sherlock Holmes canon, <i><a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/more-holmes.html" target="_blank">The House of Silk</a>. Moriarty </i>is the second of his Holmes stories, and is, I believe, even better than <i>House of Silk. </i>It's a clever, clever novel. Beautifully written, tight-paced, hugely readable, everything that a good thriller should be.<br /><br />Horowitz adroitly avoids any criticism of his depiction of Holmes and Watson by avoiding them for most of the novel. Although there's a wonderful pastiche of a <i><a href="https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php?title=The_Strand_Magazine" target="_blank">Strand Magazine</a></i> article towards the end of the book. For much of the novel (despite the title) there is very little mention of any of Conan Doyle's familiar characters.<br /><br />Starting around the time of the events at the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Final_Problem" target="_blank">Reichenbach Falls</a>, Frederick Chase is a Pinkerton agent on the trail of an American criminal mastermind, who appears to be scooping up the crime networks left behind in Britain following the demise of Moriarty. Inspector Athelney Jones of Scotland Yard, who is a huge Holmes fan, is also anxious to mop up the criminals that Holmes was unable to snare. Together the intrepid duo are hot on their trail; but a series of gruesome murders suggests that it's not only Clarence Devereux, the American Crime-King, who is keen to inherit Moriarty's networks.<br /><br />This is a stunningly clever novel with twists and turns aplenty. It even completely threw the Bookhound, who normally prides herself on being able to spot a plot twist several miles away (I guessed what Horowitz was up to, but had mistaken where the twist was placed - I will say no more on this leaving it to the next reader to be as surprised as I was). It's cunningly written paying due respect to Ronald Knox's <a href="https://www.writingclasses.com/toolbox/tips-masters/ronald-knox-10-commandments-of-detective-fiction" target="_blank">10 commandments of crime fiction</a>. Horowitz smashes his way through one of the commandments, but does it so exceptionally that you really can't hold it against him.<br /><br />I thought <i>Moriarty</i> was a brilliant read. It reads like a late Victorian / early twentieth century thriller, there's a real sense of place as carriages ride through Victorian London and footpads lurk in the tunnels beneath Smithfield, there's some great characterisation and some of the best use of smoke and mirrors since <a href="http://thehereticmagazine.com/the-worlds-most-famous-forgotten-illusionist/" target="_blank">the Great Lafayette</a>.<br /><br /><i>Moriarty </i>is Anthony Horowitz at his stunning best. In fact it out Conan's Doyle.http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/10/clever.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-5437663654417855967Thu, 29 Sep 2016 16:16:00 +00002016-09-29T17:16:19.307+01:00coming-of-age novelsevilinnocenceredemptionsecond world warwarTrapped<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1EmCBqIWtFw/V-07MuFbO9I/AAAAAAAAD2w/kksyU7EeRZY8tPWex-eUxufoZQQW5hv-gCLcB/s1600/Orford.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1EmCBqIWtFw/V-07MuFbO9I/AAAAAAAAD2w/kksyU7EeRZY8tPWex-eUxufoZQQW5hv-gCLcB/s1600/Orford.JPG" /></a></div><i>The dynamite room </i>by Jason Hewitt is a gripping read. Wonderfully tense, it's another in the great line of novels and films about innocence meeting warped experience (think <i>Tiger Bay </i>or <i>Whistle Down the Wind, To kill a mockingbird </i>or <i>A high wind in Jamaica</i>). <i>Dynamite Room </i>also has elements of <i>The Eagle has landed </i>and <i>The boy in the striped pyjamas. </i>Having said which it's an excellent book in its own right, and is well worth reading, even if the story isn't entirely original.<br /><br />Lydia is a wartime evacuee, on the run from an unhappy foster home in Wales. Arriving back at her home on the Suffolk coast (ironically enough very near to where I will be staying next week), she finds her home deserted and the villagers gone. Unbeknown to her the army has requisitioned the area and she finds herself in an isolated eerie village. Back at her home she discovers that she is not alone - a German soldier has moved into her house. Have the Germans invaded, or is there something else going on? And how does Heiden know so much about her family?<br /><br /><i>Dynamite Room </i>really grew on me. I started off thinking that it was, at least mildly, derivative; but as the novel developed it blossomed. There's some great characterisation here. I loved Lydia, a woman-child on the cusp of adulthood. Heiden, the German, ashamed of his past, and desperately trying to make amends is a pitiful, and at times lovable, character; and Eva, the love of his life, is a beautiful heroine, the type that we would probably all wish to be, but suspect we would fall short.<br /><br />The Suffolk countryside is also well evoked in this novel. The innocence and beauty of the countryside provides a fitting background for the steadfast character of Lydia, who has had her own minor brush with evil, and is ashamed, on her own little level, of her actions as the adult Heiden is of his.<br /><br />Throughout the novel, open spaces are contrasted with the claustrophobic rooms where evil happens - from the dynamite room of the title to the evil mental hospital which lies at the dark heart of the story. It's a profoundly moving, and at times unsettling read, which cannot fail to make you wonder how you would react faced with the choices that Heiden and Eva were forced to make.<br /><br />This is Jason Hewitt's first novel. It is beautifully written, and I can't wait to read more by him.<br /><br /><br />http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/09/trapped.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-5392995768034024262Mon, 26 Sep 2016 14:45:00 +00002016-09-26T15:45:44.404+01:00Cynthia Harrod-Eaglesfamily sagasFirst world warthe war at home seriesOver by Christmas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vDb4QQdTQ0s/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vDb4QQdTQ0s?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>A few months ago I reviewed the first novel in Cynthia Harrod-Eagles "The War at Home" series - <i><a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/storm-clouds.html" target="_blank">Goodbye Piccadilly</a>, </i>which focused on 1914, the lead up to and the first few months of the First World War. I'm pleased to say that the second novel in the sequence <i>Keep the Home Fires Burning </i>(note the musical connection between the titles) is every bit as good as the first novel.<br /><br />It's now 1915, the war has already gone on longer than anyone was expecting, the threat of conscription looms ever nearer, and as the first of the wounded return home the nation starts to feel the true cost of war. Life goes on however, and as ordinary people try to have fun, zeppelin raids will bring the war frighteningly to the home front.<br /><br />Like the first novel in the series I enjoyed <i>Keep the home fires burning </i>enormously. There was an added poignancy to the second in the series too, as war will change forever these characters that you've grown to know and love in the first volume. The impact of the First World War on the home front is something that's received not a great deal of attention in contemporary literature, though there are plenty of excellent novels and memoirs of life as a soldier (<i>The ghost road, <a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/birdsong.html" target="_blank">Birdsong</a>, <a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2010/07/goodbye-to-all-that.html" target="_blank">Goodbye to all that</a> </i>etc. etc.) A notable exception is Vera Brittain's memoir <i><a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2016/07/lost-generation.html" target="_blank">Testament of Youth</a>.</i><br /><br />Perhaps the biggest change that becomes increasingly obvious in <i>Keep the home fires burning </i>is the way in which life would change dramatically, and ultimately liberatingly, for women. From small steps driving vehicles for the Red Cross to the introduction of women policemen 1915 marked a period of great change for everyone from young men going abroad often for the first time, to women treading a new path in society. Families are torn apart and the war changes from a gentlemen's affair where football could be played on Christmas Day and <i>Silent Night</i> sung, to a total war where no quarter was given and where chemical warfare would become a sinister fact of life.<br /><br /><i>Keep the home fires burning </i>is not the most cheerful of reads, but for an evocation of an era in a period of great change it's a fascinating and gripping read.http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/09/over-by-christmas.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-6782619146795238159Sat, 24 Sep 2016 15:21:00 +00002016-09-24T16:21:28.584+01:00daphne du maurierhistorical novelspiratesTBR ChallengeA gentle shivering<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o4fhozPDjUQ/V-aZ2gdEUqI/AAAAAAAAD2g/TQW1JBXtpScw5SAe02M1isXrMx6B_fGGQCLcB/s1600/Frenchmans%2Bcreek.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-o4fhozPDjUQ/V-aZ2gdEUqI/AAAAAAAAD2g/TQW1JBXtpScw5SAe02M1isXrMx6B_fGGQCLcB/s320/Frenchmans%2Bcreek.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Daphne du Maurier's <i>Frenchman's Creek </i>is the second of my recent piratical reads following on from the children's adventure <i><a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2016/09/the-white-twilight_21.html" target="_blank">The White Twilight</a>. Frenchman's Creek </i>belonged to my Mum and has been a long-term resident of the To-Be-Read shelf. This is quite odd as I've read most Daphne du Maurier's, and especially devoured the earlier ones - notably&nbsp;<i><a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2011/11/anonymous.html" target="_blank">Rebecca</a>, Jamaica Inn</i> and <i>The King's General.</i><br /><i><br /></i><i>Frenchman's Creek </i>is a bit of a cross between all these novels - a touch of mystery, the Cornish landscape and a stately home, skulduggery on the high seas, and an historical setting. Just 10 years separate the four novels with <i>Frenchman's Creek </i>coming at the midway point. To be quite honest it is a bit of a disappointment. The story starts out promisingly enough, Dona St. Colomb is a wealthy woman living in London during the racy Restoration. Bored with her life in the city, she moves to the ancestral home of her husband in Cornwall seeking a new life. Restored by the Cornish climate, life changes dramatically for Dona when she meets a French pirate who has been terrorising the coast of Cornwall; but eventually Dona will have to choose between family life or life as a pirate's moll.<br /><br />It's a sweet story, perhaps a little too sweet - at times it is distinctly saccharine, and owes far more to the world of Mills and Boon than Hitchcock's <i>Rebecca</i>. Having said which it's an enjoyable read; which also, surprisingly, made me think far more deeply about the changing lives of women in the twentieth century - I would suspect that Frenchman's Creek written 40 years later may have been a very different book.<br /><br />If you're looking to read Du Maurier at her best however, this is one of her weaker novels. Go for <i>Rebecca</i> or <i>Jamaica Inn</i> first.http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/09/a-gentle-shivering.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-4498184164305365866Wed, 21 Sep 2016 16:02:00 +00002016-09-21T17:16:30.179+01:00children's bookshistorical novelspiratesschooldaysset readsTBR ChallengeThe white twilightYou'll be unsurprised to learn that I've always loved reading. A recent trip to South Wales showing partner, who'd never been there before, my youthful haunts included a drive past my old infants school (loathed it!) and an unassuming corner shop. Not any corner shop though, as a small child it used to be a newsagent and was where Bookpuppy bought a book a week - Ladybird's learning to read "<a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2989622/Girls-jeans-dads-helping-house-beginning-urban-sprawl-Peter-Jane-books-60s-70s-marked-changes-British-society.html" target="_blank">Peter and Jane</a>" series initially, and after that any book or comic that I could get my hands on. The shop has changed many times since, and has seen better days, but I feel a warm glow inside whenever I think of it.<br /><br /><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ue62q4KCGEA/V-Ku0YR5h5I/AAAAAAAAD2M/_Y76y7DIlFQq0qFtK6ZmjW0awnibqw_HACLcB/s1600/school.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Ue62q4KCGEA/V-Ku0YR5h5I/AAAAAAAAD2M/_Y76y7DIlFQq0qFtK6ZmjW0awnibqw_HACLcB/s320/school.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The loathed school. In my memory it was every bit as bad as it looked!</td></tr></tbody></table>Move on a few years to school. Not surprisingly I adored English lessons. The only thing I disliked about them was the obligatory forced novel reading. Part of my problem with it was that I hate to be forced to read anything (it doesn't half spoil the fun). Then there's the fact that you're stuck on a book that you would normally have finished in a few days for months. So do you read it in one great delicious gulp, and then become increasingly bored with it forced to revisit week after week after week? Or do you just read the chunk that you've been assigned for that week, and completely lose the plot? (I would certainly mentally lose the plot, as I find dragging any book out like this to be an excruciating process).<br /><br />The books we read in secondary school were so variable too. <i>Bran the Bronze-smith</i> - a tale of a bronze age man and his coracle, it was every bit as bad as it sounded, and I don't think I ever got to the end of it, <i><a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2011/02/meeting-in-england.html" target="_blank">We'll meet in England</a>&nbsp;</i>and <i>The diary of Anne Frank, </i>two of the few English lesson books that I loved. Then there was John Wyndham's <i><a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/day-of-triffids.html" target="_blank">Day of the triffids</a> </i>and <i>The chrysalids</i>; both of which I hated till I re-read them many years later. Joan Lingard's <i>Across the barricades </i>(along with <i>Bran, </i>I never finished it), Alan Garner's <i>Owl Service - </i>I liked it at the time, but had a mixed response when reading it more recently. And then there were the "grown-up" books - <i><a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/just-great.html" target="_blank">Great Expectations</a>&nbsp;</i>(unreservedly loved it), <i>Hard Times </i>(was very thankful that I'd already read <i>A Christmas Carol </i>and <i>A Tale of Two Cities, </i>as I think this would have been a very odd introduction to Dickens). And then there was <i>Pride and Prejudice </i>taught by a brilliant English teacher, who made me love everything we read with him (thank you Mr. Simmonds!).<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OHyhftTeGCg/V-KuTU6j3VI/AAAAAAAAD2I/9vhNkau_MYU2n0iNH9K0Ww8ezf9HMnQCgCLcB/s1600/white%2Btwilight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OHyhftTeGCg/V-KuTU6j3VI/AAAAAAAAD2I/9vhNkau_MYU2n0iNH9K0Ww8ezf9HMnQCgCLcB/s320/white%2Btwilight.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>Recently I'd been thinking about the books I'd read at school. I could distinctly remember reading a novel in the first year of secondary school which I thought was set in Copenhagen and involved an astronomer and two children. Other than that I had no recollection of anything further. A couple of searches via Google failed to find it, and then I remembered my old school group on Facebook, a quick post there and a savvy group member dug out her old exercise books for me, and found the title - <i>The White Twilight </i>by Madeleine Polland.<br /><br />Another quick search online, and a copy was en route to me from <a href="http://onlinebooksellersdirectory.com/listing/alex-the-fat-dawg/" target="_blank">The Old Cheese Factory</a> in Lampeter (surely one of the world's nicest addresses). It was a decent copy too - hardback with its original dust jacket - pretty rare for a relatively cheap book from the 1960's.<br /><br />The book however didn't quite live up to my expectations. Set in Denmark in late Tudor Times (I suspect the Copenhagen connection was a mix-up in my mind with the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rundetaarn" target="_blank">astronomers' tower</a> mentioned in <i><a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/lets-hear-it-for-puffin.html" target="_blank">The Pony in the luggage</a>), </i>Hanne moves from Antwerp to Kronborg (Hamlet's Elsinore) to live with her father, who is extending the castle. While there she meets Carl Adam, the son of the most important member of the Court, and quickly realises that something is amiss. <i>The white twilight </i>is an odd book, a strange mish-mash of history, piracy, astronomy, and pre-teenage angst. It's not a bad adventure story, but doesn't quite deliver. It's an enjoyable enough tale, but must have been fairly excruciating reading as a set-work, even reading it over a few days I found it incredibly slow-paced.<br /><br />Having said which there are some really lovely moments. I especially enjoyed the descriptions of the ship, the White Twilight, and the scenes at sea were very dramatic. You're left feeling though that this book could have been so much more than it was.http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/09/the-white-twilight_21.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-6441574059970654036Wed, 21 Sep 2016 14:27:00 +00002016-09-21T15:27:31.388+01:00art historyhomenon-fictionsocial commentarysocial historyNo place like homeThere's been a bit of a pause in blogging recently owing to family problems. So it was rather odd to be reading Judith Flanders' <i>The making of home, </i>a book about the development of what we, in the West at least, have come to think of as the standard elements that make a house "home".<br /><br />Over the last 20 years I've been very exercised as to what is "home". After moving to Cambridge from S Wales, I lived in a series of rented accommodation. I soon gave up on thinking of any of it as "home" - way too unpredictable. Just when you thought this was where you were going to be for the next X number of years it ceased to become home - the landlord decided to sell, the landlady died, there was a change of use.<br /><br />Finally settled into a home of my own, that too soon ceased to feel like home. Last year, I finally worked out that home was where the dogs were; and <a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/loss.html" target="_blank">now, of course, there are no dogs</a>, so I'm left feeling rather adrift again.<br /><br />I enjoyed Judith Flanders' book, it was very enlightening, occasionally surprising, sometimes inaccurate, but a pleasure to read. Starting in Early Modern Europe, Flanders examines what our houses were originally intended for, and how they gradually evolved from being combination lodgings and businesses into the "Englishman's castle" of modern day life. Along the way there are some surprising insights into how the evolution of home also had an enormous impact (not necessarily positive) on women's lives. Many ideas that appeared to be labour-saving, for example, turned out to be more labour-saving for men than for women. The move to businesses outside the home meant that men had a journey to work but also enabled them to have a definite work "compartment" whereas the change for women meant that their work, and status as partners within the domestic relationship, was devalued while also forcing them to do more work within the home.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>Some of the most fascinating parts of Flanders' book deal with the things that get left out of art. Our idea of the typical Flemish 16th/17th century home, for example, comes largely from the art of the period. We imagine Dutch homes as being airy and a little spartan. In fact many paintings are less about realism and more about iconography. Did you know that the lady in this painting by Gabriel Metsu, for example, would have been considered rather racy? The give-away is the cast-off shoe....<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gBgGamdhQXM/V-KPgdtq8tI/AAAAAAAAD1o/HkOgnbx69ckyDv-55uoxihNAmQLOEpVNgCEw/s1600/300px-Woman_Reading_a_Letter_by_Gabri%25C3%25ABl_Metsu.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gBgGamdhQXM/V-KPgdtq8tI/AAAAAAAAD1o/HkOgnbx69ckyDv-55uoxihNAmQLOEpVNgCEw/s320/300px-Woman_Reading_a_Letter_by_Gabri%25C3%25ABl_Metsu.jpg" width="246" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H4wrJrgthUo/V-KQGObnaGI/AAAAAAAAD1s/-RPGZd5buOMoG0Q3KsM2vySGnb10sRQfACEw/s1600/Escaped%2Bbird.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-H4wrJrgthUo/V-KQGObnaGI/AAAAAAAAD1s/-RPGZd5buOMoG0Q3KsM2vySGnb10sRQfACEw/s320/Escaped%2Bbird.jpg" width="154" /></a></div>...or that this painting by Willem van Mieris is less about the austere beauty of the property than about the Low Countries emancipation from Spain? The canary bursting from its cage and the prominent broom sweeping Flanders free of the Spanish (spaniel) dog are the keys here. I'm delighted to see ancestors of my Alfie Spaniel appearing in both pictures too.<br /><br />Flanders also points out that what you see in art work of any period is not necessarily what you would have actually seen in life. Until she mentioned it, I had never thought that it was odd that I had never seen a spittoon, for example, included in a picture of home, but if you think about modern representations of home, as Flanders perceptively points out, how often (if ever) do you see the miles of electrical cable that keep our TVs, chargers, satellite dishes, and fridges on the go?<br /><br />Similarly many paintings of home are less about contemporary life as lived, and more about aspiration. Here though, I did have some disagreements with the author. Many of her assumptions were based upon early modern wills and other legal documents referring to household contents; although I'm sure that to a certain extent she was correct, I'm also sure that other documentation of the period might lead the researcher to believe otherwise. She mentioned, for example, the paucity of musical instruments. However only that week I had been doing some research on the <a href="http://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofEngland/The-Great-Fire-of-London/" target="_blank">Great Fire of London</a> for <a href="https://musicb3.wordpress.com/2016/09/02/to-celebrate-to-commemorate-the-great-fire-of-london/" target="_blank">another blog that I'm involved with</a>, and had been struck by Samuel Pepys' observation:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;">&nbsp;<i>River full of lighters and boats taking in goods, and good goods swimming in the water, and only I observed that hardly one lighter or boat in three that had the goods of a house in, but there was a pair of Virginalls in it.</i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;">Admittedly the people that Pepys spotted fleeing the fire were probably less the working-class of the City, and more the merchants and shopkeepers; the middle-class of 17th century London. Nevertheless, these were relatively ordinary people fleeing swiftly with the items that they most valued. They evidently desperately wanted to save their bits of furniture and the musical instruments that they loved.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The book is occasionally clunky, and there is some unfortunate and sometimes confusing chronological leaps around. Nevertheless though I found it a hugely informative and thought-provoking read. I'm not sure that I altogether agree with Flanders' premise that home in the sense that Dorothy in <i>The Wizard of Oz</i> thought of it - a place that is more about heart than head - is quite such a modern concept, but for a fascinating insight into how our contemporary perception of what makes a house "home" came into being <i>The making of home </i>is well worth a look.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/ooM-RGUTe2E/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ooM-RGUTe2E?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i><br /></i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/09/no-place-like-home.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-9070522934454488884Mon, 05 Sep 2016 14:59:00 +00002016-09-05T15:59:20.302+01:00chicken soup for the soulCold warcomic writingmusicoperaPorgy and BesstravelTruman CapoteTo Russia with love<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/5EpKpJYmVjo/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5EpKpJYmVjo?start=75&amp;end=116 feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>One of the things I most love about books is how they can take you completely by surprise. They can remain in your mind long after the last page has been read, they can sweep you into a new world, and, just sometimes, they're like encountering that person who you meet and feel immediately as though you can't remember a time when they weren't part of your life, and who, you know, will continue to give you joy for a very long time.<br /><br />I've mentioned before the <a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2015/12/safety-in-numbers.html" target="_blank">odd library</a> that formed part of my Hall of Residence at university. Among the many books that I read there the one that stands out the most was Truman Capote's <i>In Cold Blood. </i>I'd seen the film (but at that stage not read the book) of <i>Breakfast at Tiffany's, </i>and so rather associated Capote with the light and frivolous. <i>In cold blood </i>was neither of these, but was a dark examination into the <a href="http://www.gcpolice.org/History/Clutter.html" target="_blank">brutal murder of a Kansas family</a>, and the minds of the killers. It was a chilling piece of reportage told in a gripping novelistic manner. Except for the basic history of the events that unfolded in Holcomb, Kansas, I quickly forgot any detail of the book; but the atmosphere that surrounded it has made the book linger long in my memory.<br /><br />Recently I saw the film <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0420609/" target="_blank">Infamous</a> </i>(great performances from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toby_Jones" target="_blank">Toby Jones</a> as Truman Capote and Sandra Bullock as <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/20/arts/harper-lee-dies.html?_r=0" target="_blank">Harper Lee</a>) which told the story behind the writing of <i>In cold blood. </i>Although (as with any biopic) I would be careful not to be completely trusting, there were some fascinating snippets. Did you know, for example, that the character Dill in <i>To kill a mockingbird </i>was based on a young Truman Capote, a close friend of Harper Lee? The snippet that grabbed my interest though the most was the recently published book that Capote toted to Kansas <i>The muses are heard. </i>An account of a recent tour by an American opera company to Russia at the height of the Cold War sounded fascinating, and I was quickly onto Amazon trying to find it.<br /><br />The book itself as a solo work is long out of print, but it can still be found included in <i><a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00C4BA7N8/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&amp;psc=1" target="_blank">Portraits and Observations</a>, </i>a collection of essays by Capote. At 178 pages long <i>The muses are heard </i>is a pretty substantial essay, it's also one of the most fun non-fiction works I've read in some time.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/kP5O_NUhrK0/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/kP5O_NUhrK0?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div><i>Muses are heard </i>is the delightful account of the Everyman Opera Company's tour of Gershwin's <i><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porgy_and_Bess" target="_blank">Porgy and Bess</a>. </i>Hot off the back of a successful world tour, the Everyman Company takes its (for that day extraordinary, even today unusual) company of black American singers on tour to Leningrad, just in time for Christmas 1955. Russia had never seen an American opera company before, let alone so many black singers. The Americans were expecting to be tailed by the KGB and continually bugged.<br /><br />The title is a quote from one of the Russians in charge of the tour "When the cannons are silent the muses are heard". It's a wonderful combination of innocence abroad, a hint of skullduggery, some wonderful laugh-out-loud moments (note to self - a World War II US Army Russian phrasebook can lead to misunderstandings), and a great feel-good book. Despite the Cold War, trains without restaurant cars, and microphones in the bedrooms the opera company's attempts to bring America to Russia are met with success. The singers are warmly feted, and the Americans are met with genuine curiosity along with some heartfelt pleas for sponsors.<br /><br />The company itself were a motley crew ranging from wealthy socialites such as Mrs. Ira Gershwin to hard working (and sometimes living) musicians to crusty English stagehands, who are amused and somewhat confused by the majestic rooms that the Soviet Union's hotel agency has arranged for them.<br /><br />Capote is adept at character sketches. He has a wonderful lightness of touch, and a genuine flair for the comedic moment. I adored this book. Wonderfully funny, occasionally touching (the children of the company's delight in this new weird world, and the genuine joy of the company when they are unexpectedly presented with a Christmas tree by their hosts were moments to savour), I absolutely adored it. A curious mix of travelogue, spy thriller and Damon Runyon. Non-fiction chicken soup for the soul. A great pick-me-up whatever the weather.http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/09/to-russia-with-love.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-732374409858671513Tue, 30 Aug 2016 14:59:00 +00002016-08-30T15:59:27.928+01:00magicneurosciencepopular sciencepsychologyFooling Houdini<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p2900bTHbqU/V8WfQ71-ETI/AAAAAAAAD1I/wcdZNw14fzoizFL49O1k5rFHHEnIgqg7ACLcB/s1600/cards.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p2900bTHbqU/V8WfQ71-ETI/AAAAAAAAD1I/wcdZNw14fzoizFL49O1k5rFHHEnIgqg7ACLcB/s1600/cards.jpg" /></a></div><i>Fooling Houdini </i>by Alex Stone is a fascinating and sometimes magical investigation into the world of magicians, science and psychology. Stone studied physics at Columbia, but he'd spent most of his life as a keen amateur magician. When magic and physics collided there was only going to be one winner, but Stone's dreams of becoming a top-flight magician appeared to do their own magical vanishing act when he had an epic fail at the Magic Olympics (no, I didn't know they existed either). Desperate to renew his love affair with all things magical, Stone set about rehabilitating himself as a magician.<br /><br /><i>Fooling Houdini </i>is about the path that led him back. Along the way he investigates the science of magic, the long love-affair that people have with being fooled, and the use of magic for some less than legal reasons. There are some fascinating neuroscience facts bandied along the way, and some startling information for anyone who thinks that they are normally fairly perceptive when viewing the world. For example Stone examines the science behind the "missing gorilla" scenario, which is, to put it mildly startling, and through this explains both how it benefits magicians, and why it really isn't a good idea to use a mobile phone when driving (it's probably not for the reason that you might be thinking).<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vJG698U2Mvo/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/vJG698U2Mvo?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>From sham-psychics and spoon benders to illusionists of the highest calibre, this is a fascinating read. Occasionally it gets a little bogged down in the technicalities of magic performance (at least for this reader), but it's nonetheless absolutely entrancing. A great read whether you're a magic aficionado or just interested in the way that science, mind and magic interact.http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/08/fooling-houdini.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-4798053868564750139Mon, 29 Aug 2016 11:28:00 +00002016-08-29T12:28:56.007+01:00ColetteFirst world warfrench classic fictionTBR ChallengeBefore and after<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5V3y4MSnxcU/V8QcbF_-m3I/AAAAAAAAD04/ScFzVY40OP8C5lV-Vy8wVvELolTBw07JACLcB/s1600/Paris%2B1920%2B%252836%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-5V3y4MSnxcU/V8QcbF_-m3I/AAAAAAAAD04/ScFzVY40OP8C5lV-Vy8wVvELolTBw07JACLcB/s320/Paris%2B1920%2B%252836%2529.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;">***MAJOR SPOILER ALERT***</div>I'm a big fan of Colette. I've always loved her writing. The <a href="http://the-bookhound.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/the-claudine-sequence.html" target="_blank">Claudine novels</a> escorted me on a trip round Europe, and even now re-reading them brings back the feeling of being young. That's not just because of my reading them as a young 20-something, but they have a wonderful youthful joie-de-vivre about them. Colette's writing is beautiful, she's sparing with her words, and yet can create a moment so evocatively (great tribute to her translators too, who do a wonderful job).<br /><br />A couple of her novels though I've had for years but have never got around to reading, so it was time to dip into <i>Cheri </i>and <i>The last of Cheri</i>. I found both novels very unexpected. Unlike the other novels of Colette's that I had read, these were not such easy reading; and you really wouldn't want to be feeling down when reading <i>The last of Cheri.</i><br /><i><br /></i>Both novels centre around Cheri, the pet-name for a spoilt young man, who is the son of a courtesan. Cheri is at the heart of Paris's demi-monde, where he is the pampered pet of his mother's friends. Determined to bring Cheri up as a proper member of society, his mother hands him over to Lea de Lonval, a fellow courtesan of her own age, to continue his sentimental and sexual education. What seems like a casual and extremely happy relationship becomes more serious when Cheri marries the daughter of another courtesan. At which point both Cheri and Lea realise that they are in love with each other. They avoid each other on Lea's advice in an attempt to make the marriage work, but after 6 months Cheri returns to Lea, only to finally realise that she is much older than him, at which point he leaves her and goes back to his young wife leaving Lea devastated even though in her heart she had always known that at some point this would happen.<br /><br /><i>The last of Cheri </i>moves forward several years. Cheri has survived the First World War. Embittered by the experience, he's back in Paris with a wife with whom he has nothing in common. Realising that his wife is happiest without him and has started having affairs, he returns to Lea, but she is greatly changed, and in any case doesn't want to rekindle the relationship. (Lea in the latter novel is an oddly insubstantial character, so different from the earlier vibrant woman of&nbsp;<i>Cheri). </i>Throughout Cheri, I, at least, was convinced that Lea genuinely loved Cheri. In <i>The last of Cheri </i>this is not so clear - did Lea really love him, or was she just fulfilling her expected role?&nbsp;In a fit of nihilism Cheri decides to commit suicide.<br /><br />I found these novels oddly difficult to read. The first novel is in many ways Colette at her most luminous. There is some beautiful writing. Cheri is a sweet, if pampered, boy, and Lea is just wonderfully written - a vibrant, lovable woman with an element of tragedy at her core. You know that Lea will never be happy in love, but you desperately want life to be kind to her. In an odd way you want life to be kind to Cheri too, exasperating as he is, as he blunders his way into marriage.<br /><br />The second novel though is as cold as the iciest circle of Hell. I believe that this was Colette's own commentary on the inheritance of the First World War. Cheri wants to get as far away as possible from his wartime experiences, but Paris is still over-run by members of the American military, a constant reminder of a horrible time; while society women, such as his mother and his wife, are obsessed with hospital fund-raisers and rehabilitating wounded soldiers. Cheri, who has survived the war physically intact (though I would suspect that a modern-day Cheri would have been diagnosed with PTSD) becomes an onlooker, unable to escape his life as a soldier mentally and trapped in a Paris swarming with reminders of his own personal suffering.<br /><br />Desperate to reclaim his lost happiness Cheri distances himself from his family and friends as he loses his grip on society. It is a devastatingly sad book which draws you in and holds the reader. Like most Colette it is well written, but I missed the sunny Colette that I love. And although I admired the writing, there is something curiously unlikeable about Cheri, though I loved the Lea of the first novel.<br /><br />Well written, at times devastating, for any fan of Colette the Cheri sequence is essential reading, but keep a large glass of brandy to hand!http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/08/before-and-after.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-4068487445697094943Mon, 29 Aug 2016 10:40:00 +00002016-08-29T11:46:00.534+01:00books about the theatreElizabethan Englandhistorical crime fictionTBR ChallengeActing can seriously damage your health<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-42Nl2uM08Uk/V8QQ5w9pS5I/AAAAAAAAD0o/IEoW6Z5UyicYDHY2xIsfQMiPWDcku4HZQCLcB/s1600/Elizabethantheatre2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="276" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-42Nl2uM08Uk/V8QQ5w9pS5I/AAAAAAAAD0o/IEoW6Z5UyicYDHY2xIsfQMiPWDcku4HZQCLcB/s320/Elizabethantheatre2.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Edward Marston's <i>The malevolent comedy </i>is a fun read. Set during Elizabethan times it's one of his long series of Nicholas Bracewell novels following the adventures of Bracewell and theatrical company Lord Westfield's Men.<br /><br />Desperate to find some new plays when their resident playwright develops writer's block, Lawrence Firethorn, their actor-manager, happens upon Saul Hibbert, an up-and-coming playwright, whose latest play <i>The malevolent comedy </i>looks like a sure-fire success. Sure enough the comedy is well received, but it comes at an enormous price when a young actor is murdered onstage. Bracewell is convinced that Lord Westfield's Men just happen to be in the line of fire of an assault that is aimed at Hibbert. As events escalate Bracewell has to find a way to save the players from an all too real revenge tragedy.<br /><br />There are hiccups and the occasional unconvincing moment, but generally this is a rollicking good read with a lovely background to the story, as Marston brings Elizabethan London to life. The theatre company are well portrayed, and there are moments of real tension. It's a fun, quick read and hugely enjoyable whether you're looking for a light crime story, or a bit of historical fiction. Quite dark at times, there are also moments of pure comedy skillfully blended.<br /><br />I have read previous Bracewell mysteries and enjoyed those too, and must revisit the whole series.http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/08/acting-can-seriously-damage-your-health.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-588269916624155352.post-1063321955613036343Sun, 28 Aug 2016 13:41:00 +00002016-08-29T12:31:13.106+01:00atheismBach challengebelief systemsphilosophypopular sciencetheologyIn the beginning....<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yjr2lQyfa3w/V8LoUwN5HII/AAAAAAAAD0U/sxHtc-vIkvoK-B2ZZhf1rOuQmHOChsO9wCLcB/s1600/Egypt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Yjr2lQyfa3w/V8LoUwN5HII/AAAAAAAAD0U/sxHtc-vIkvoK-B2ZZhf1rOuQmHOChsO9wCLcB/s320/Egypt.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I think I was about 6 when I started to have "issues" with God. I was brought up in a religious household, and like most children of that age I tended to believe what I was told. Then in 1972 the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exhibitions_of_artifacts_from_the_tomb_of_Tutankhamun" target="_blank">Tutankhamun exhibition came to the UK</a>&nbsp;- I was too young to go to it, and my mother, in any case, refused point-blank to stand in any queue for longer than 30 minutes (Tut queuers allegedly waited up to 8 hours, so she did have a point!). If I couldn't go to London, I was determined to read up on as much "Tutology" as I could, and so started a long term love affair with Ancient Egypt.<br /><br />But then one day came a rather puzzling moment. I had been happily reading about the great plethora of Egyptian gods, and it suddenly struck me that your average Ancient Egyptian had believed quite sincerely in these gods. Indeed chaos had resulted in the country when Tut's father, Akhenaten, decided he wanted nothing to do with them, and was going to worship a very different god. Even my 6 year old mind knew that there was nothing particularly stupid about Ancient Egyptians - the evidence of the pyramids would certainly suggest otherwise. In many respects they were rather like us, how could they have been so wrong? How could "my" god trump theirs, when they had thought that "their" gods were so correct? It was a puzzle.<br /><br />It got even more puzzling as I became older and discovered that not only had other people at different times believed equally sincerely in other gods, but that many people on the current planet had differing belief systems. I struggled with belief through much of my childhood before deciding around the time I went to university that I didn't believe in God.<br /><br />In some ways this was a bit of a relief, in other ways very difficult, as I happened to be an organist. And it's pretty impossible to get away from the church if that's your chosen instrument. Some incredible examples of stupidity from church people around this time only reinforced my unbelief. A member of the cathedral that I happened to be an organ scholar at announced to a stupefied group of cathedral related diners that <a href="http://www.yorkmix.com/life/history/how-the-york-minster-fire-sparked-an-unholy-row-in-the-times/" target="_blank">York Minster had been struck by lightning</a> as God's revenge on the then <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Jenkins_(bishop)" target="_blank">Bishop of Durham</a>, who had expressed doubts about the virgin birth, and the physicality of the Resurrection. The Dean, who was a dear good man, muttered that he would have thought God would be a better shot.<br /><br />Post-university, still playing the organ, still feeling very uncomfortable and torn, unbelieving but knowing that as a musician the organ was my livelihood, I attended a rather more liberal church. This was actually a real game-changer for me. I finally had the room where, if I couldn't be entirely honest about my feelings, I could at least be open about questioning beliefs that seemed odd, out-dated, or even plain cruel to me. I became interested in liberal theology, and as a result I ended up moving back towards belief again, albeit with some views that I kept carefully hidden away from my more orthodox parents and friends, for fear of hurting them.<br /><br />Where am I now? Writing this has been an interesting experience, which came out of reading Richard Dawkins' <i>The God Delusion. The God Delusion </i>is, I guess, a call to atheism with the first four chapters arguments against the existence of God (or gods), while the latter part of the book looks at morality and human society with or without religion (would we still be good without God?). Dawkins contends that the world would be a much happier place without the sometimes malign influence of religion.<br /><br />Personally I wasn't too surprised that I found the first 4 chapters difficult going. Much as I admire Dawkins' writing on evolutionary matters, he can sound rather hysterical when he is religion bashing, but the thing is.....he does have a point. He reiterates, I think not unfairly, that there is something not right when society can joke or be critical about anything, but that religion, or even cultural "oddities" that are put down as religious custom are beyond reproach. I would certainly rather be kind than anything else, and would hate to stamp on anyone's religious (or cultural) sensibilities; but can't that path eventually lead to accommodating those who wish to impose their particular belief system on everyone else, not just for fear of offending them, but for fear of what they might do if offended?<br /><br />Move on to the end of the book, and I was much more at home. Dawkins is always thoroughly enjoyable on the subject of evolution in particular and science in general. His love for his subject shines through, and carried this reader enthusiastically with it. There are also some great nuggets of science for anyone who thinks that the universe might be a less inspiring place without God/s. My favourite being "<i>Every time you drink a glass of water the odds are that you will imbibe at least one molecule that passed through the bladder of Oliver Cromwell. It's just elementary probability theory...And of course, there's nothing special about Cromwell or bladders</i>&nbsp;[though I rather think Dawkins had Cromwell's "Bowels of Christ" speech in his mind while penning this analogy] -- <i>you have just breathed in a nitrogen atom that passed through the right lung of the third iguanodon to the left of the tall cycad tree"</i>. I do think this is a wonderful breathtaking image, guaranteed to entrance anyone who loves the world that surrounds us.<br /><br />Did the book convince me that atheism was the only way forward? No, although I enjoyed it hugely, and agreed with much of the writer's own beliefs. Dawkins contends that a world without religion would be a better place. I'm not convinced that this is true not least because I feel that much of the evil that has been committed in this world in the name of religious belief is just that - evil. Couching it in terms of "I am doing it for God" makes it feel acceptable to the person who commits the deed, and can make it look acceptable to those who choose to think that way, but it doesn't make it right. People have done very evil things in the name of their country, or in the name of political beliefs, but in those cases too, I think it is less to do with what they say it is for, and more to do with justifying their own base actions. Of course if religious, or political, belief had never existed it would be impossible to do this; but I think that cat has been out of its bag for far too long.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rVsJ-enqC3w/V8Lohle5GVI/AAAAAAAAD0Y/eMyBC5j_5-oRO9eAgt0IUks5BGDGPRfYACLcB/s1600/sistine.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-rVsJ-enqC3w/V8Lohle5GVI/AAAAAAAAD0Y/eMyBC5j_5-oRO9eAgt0IUks5BGDGPRfYACLcB/s1600/sistine.jpg" /></a></div>Would we be good without God? I think the answer to that is by and large yes. But without the influence of religion some things would be very different. Coincidentally I was listening to the S<i>t. Mattthew Passion </i>while reading <i>The God delusion. </i>It struck me that Bach would always have been Bach, he would always have been the genius he was, but I suspect that without his personal belief system, he would have been a rather different Bach. Some works just wouldn't have been written, and I suspect that oddly some of the humanity of his music would have been lost without his belief.<br /><br />Shortly after I finished the book, a 10-13 year old boy walked into a wedding reception in Turkey, and blew himself up. He did it in the name of his god on, presumably, the instruction of evil people, who had found a young mind ripe for manipulation. Never had <i>The God Delusion </i>seemed so relevant. People have weird beliefs, we all choose to believe in something that isn't tangible to us, whether it's a religious belief, a political viewpoint, or how we think other people view us. And whatever we believe, in my opinion, is fine, as long as it doesn't hurt others.<br /><br />Writing this, I realised that Dawkins did have a very good point. I find writing about my personal religious beliefs hard. I can talk more openly and easily about just about anything else. Like most people I vacillate, some days there's more clarity, other days more confusion. And, you know, I'm okay with that. I don't expect anyone else to share my beliefs, and I don't want or expect anyone else to impose their beliefs on me. The natural world values diversity, perhaps we should follow its lead.<br /><br />http://the-bookhound.blogspot.com/2016/08/in-beginning.htmlnoreply@blogger.com (Margaret Jones)0